


If Not Me

by featherxquill



Category: Arc of a Scythe Series - Neal Shusterman
Genre: Character Death Fix, F/M, Fake Marriage, Road Trips, in before The Toll, speculation/wish fulfilment wut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-18
Updated: 2019-10-18
Packaged: 2020-12-22 15:33:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21079133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/featherxquill/pseuds/featherxquill
Summary: Scythe Marie Curie never expected to feel anything ever again, but here she is. Scythe Faraday is with her, and they know where they must go, but it is a long drive back to Fulcrum City, and Marie never did want to be High Blade.





	If Not Me

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to Emily (scythe-fan) for looking this over for me, and also for chatting with me about these awesome books. I absolutely stole her idea for what the failsafe might be, which helped unblock me when I got stuck on it while writing this. <3

Scythe Marie Curie never expected to feel anything ever again, but here she is. Her eyelids flutter; a soothing hand smooths the hair away from her brow. The lights are dim and her vision is blurry, but she feels knuckles slide down over her cheek and linger, and it strikes her immediately as a rather familiar gesture for a revival nurse. 

Then the person speaks, and the situation resolves itself. “Welcome back, Marie. You’ve been gone a while.”

Her voice is rusty - it takes her a few moments to get it to work. “Michael?”

“It’s me,” he whispers. She can hear the smile in his voice, and something else - relief?

“Where am I?” she asks. She knows the feeling of resurrection, blood warm as her nanites work and mind groggy with pain relief, but she cannot remember the circumstances of her death. She has a recollection of plunging her knife into her own chest, but not the events that lead up to it. 

“You’re in an off-grid revival center in South Merica. I had to tell them you were my wife so they’d let me be here when you woke. How much do you remember?”

“Little enough.” Her voice is already tiring. “Arriving in Endura, and then…” It’s foggy. Water. Screaming. Her brow furrows, and she hisses in frustration. 

“Hush,” Faraday whispers, taking her hand. “It’s to be expected. They had to do a lot of work to rebuild you. You’d been in the water for some time. I’ll tell you more when you’re stronger, but for now, know that it’s important that you don’t reveal your identity. I’ve been calling you May.”

She squeezes his hand. “Weak,” she whispers. 

“I know,” he replies, “but you’ll get stronger.”

Marie smiles. “I meant you, your fake-naming skills. Weak.”

Faraday chuckles. “Barely alive and she’s critiquing me. And you wonder why I feared for my life when you were my apprentice.”

She breathes a laugh of her own, but her nanites don't like it. She can feel them reacting, dosing her with more of the sedative she's hooked up to. She lets her eyelids fall closed again, and with what little strength lingers in her, grips Michael's hand again. 

"'m glad you're here," she murmurs, and then the warm fog of drug-induced sleep takes her again.

*

Twenty-four hours later, Marie is ambulatory. Her limbs are by turns stiff with disuse and wobbly-new, but the nurses encourage her to get up and move around, so she does. The facility is predictably backstreet and dingy, but the nurses are kind. They give her a fluffy maroon robe to wear, which she is grateful for - it feels strange to be out of her lavender, but she thinks that is probably for the best given that she is usually so recognizable - and they tend to her professionally. Marie’s body is whole, but her right cheek is still covered by a dressing, which the nurses tell her is nanite-infused.

“You may need another graft, but we’re hoping this will take care of it. Your face had been absolutely _devoured_ by fish. That was _some_ boating accident.” The nurse speaks with the kind of macabre glee that tells of someone who has never seen real death, and Marie finds she envies her outlook - what must it be like to reconstruct people from the cells out? 

“They did seem to view you as a fun challenge,” Faraday tells her, when she shares this observation with him. He’s bought her coffee, and she curls up in the room’s only armchair to drink it. He tells her that when he found her, her body had been in the water for more than a month, and was badly decomposed. “I was able to retrieve your memories from the backbrain, but only up to the moment you arrived on Endura and lost contact with the Thunderhead. They honestly weren’t sure whether the implant would take, and I’m afraid that anything you don’t remember now may be lost forever.”

“I do have flashes,” she says, “but only that.” It’s disturbing to think of, her own brain rotting and her last moments vanishing with it, synapses that are now regrown struggling to connect disparate images. “I self-gleaned,” she says. “I can’t imagine why I would do that.”

“Yes, well.” Faraday looks mildly embarrassed, casts about the room as though only just now noticing that Marie is occupying the only chair. “I took the liberty of assuming that you did so under duress. I hope you won’t hold it against me.” He seems to make a decision, settles himself slightly stiffly onto the end of her bed. “We’re going to need scythes like you for what’s coming.”

He describes to her the events that transpired on Endura, how she saved Anastasia and Rowan, then presumably self-gleaned rather than go down with the island. As she had no doubt predicted, Anastasia and Rowan were found quickly, owing to the urgency with which the remaining scythedom located and unearthed the vault that contained their precious diamonds. Thankfully, the two had been found by a recovery crew sympathetic to their allegiances, willing to spirit them away and listen to their story of Goddard’s massacre. 

“That didn’t stop him from declaring himself High Blade of MidMerica, of course, or denying the claims as they surfaced, but he did make one mistake that may come back to haunt him.”

“Oh?” Marie asks, smiling with the left side of her mouth. “And what was that?”

There is a gleam in Faraday’s eye as he replies: “He read the vote. You won, but with your body presumably lost to the sea like all but three of the island’s inhabitants, he had no choice but to assume the position of High Blade himself. I’m told he took the mantle with the appropriate display of regret.”

Marie snorts. “I’ll bet.”

“So you’ll see why I must beg your forgiveness for bringing you back,” he says. “You may well be the most important woman on the continent.”

“Wonderful,” Marie sighs.

*

Faraday is cryptic about the failsafe. “We found it,” he tells her when she asks, “but I can’t explain it to you if you still mean to be part of the scythedom. I fear even knowing may be enough to disqualify me from ever serving again. I sent Munira on ahead to Fulcrum City when I came to find you, with instructions about what to do should I not return. Suffice to say, I don’t think Goddard will still be High Blade once we deploy it, but the scythedom will need a strong leader.”

“Right,” Marie says, glancing at him as she opens the bag he’s brought her, a selection of clothes for her to wear when they leave the revival center. They’re quite thoughtfully chosen - black denim jeans and a sturdy pair of boots, a few tops and a coat in charcoal and burgundy and dark teal. It’s good quality but all secondhand, nothing that will stand out or make her look newly-minted. His eyes are downcast when she reaches the underwear, all new and perfectly sized, and she isn’t sure if it’s the weight of their history or his thoughts about the failsafe that frame him that way. 

“Is it extreme, then?” she asks, lifting her chosen items from the bag.

Faraday lifts his eyes to meet hers. “No more or less than the scythedom needs.”

*

Marie still has the dressing on her cheek when they leave the clinic. It’s the only part of her reconstruction remaining, and the nurses agree that she doesn’t need to be there while it heals.

“These nanites will keep rebuilding you for three weeks,” one says, as he changes the patch on the morning they leave. “After that, you can take it off yourself, and if you’re not happy with the results you can go anywhere you like to have it sorted. A turning clinic would have it done for you in a jiffy, if you want that. Your husband wouldn’t let us do it when we revived you.”

Marie smiles, although it’s somewhat of a backhanded comment. “We usually turn together,” she says. It’s not even too much of a lie. 

She thinks about it, turning, as she prepares herself to leave, twisting her silver hair up and pinning it back to disguise its length. She could go back to the chestnut brown it had been in her thirties, cut it short like she’d kept it at twenty-five. No one would recognize her then, she thinks, as she applies a slick of dark brown lipstick that she would never wear with her scythe robes. It could be a new beginning, living off the grid, or perhaps wrangling herself a new identity entirely. She’d never wanted to be High Blade in the first place. 

A pair of dark sunglasses complete her disguise. When Michael arrives to pick her up, she’s already wearing them - to avoid being recognized immediately, she tells herself, but in truth knows that it’s also so he won’t be able to read her thoughts in her eyes.

*

They travel north. Harvest Conclave is in just over a month’s time, and they have two continents to traverse. Ordinarily, it wouldn’t be more than a day’s journey, but staying off-grid will take them a bit longer, and they have nothing keeping them in the south.

Marie insists on accompanying Faraday when he goes to buy them a car. 

“They’ll sell you a lemon,” she tells him. “And I am _not_ travelling in whatever you think acceptable style is.”

“We don’t want to draw attention,” he warns her, but she can tell by the half-smile playing around his mouth that he’s already conceded. 

“Nonsense,” she says. “We just need a good cover story. How are you at accents?”

They pose as British tourists in their second retirement, keen to explore the Mericas the traditional way. “I’m ever so keen to get behind the wheel of one of those old-fashioned sports cars,” she tells the salesman.

They eschew red, the colour of her beloved Porsche, but are soon eyeing a 21st Century black Mustang. 

“I can give you that one for twenty thousand credits,” the salesman says. Faraday’s eyes widen, and he makes a small shake of the head gesture, but Marie isn’t willing to give up so easily.

“Twenty?” Marie demands, incredulous. “Even the 23rd Century models aren’t that much. We’ll give you ten.”

The salesman makes a counter-offer, and Marie’s never haggled for anything in her life but she finds the process invigorating. She manages to beat the man down to twelve, which Faraday seems to find acceptable. 

“I could get used to this,” she tells him after, keys in hand. “Living like a normal.”

He eyes her thoughtfully, but says nothing.

*

Traveling as husband and wife has its benefits, but it has its pitfalls too. They stare at the double bed in the roadside motel room they’ve rented that first night and awkwardness descends on them both. Marie remembers seven deaths and the seventy years apart, and it strikes her that this situation could be very dangerous indeed.

“I’ll take the couch,” Michael says eventually. 

That snaps Marie out of it. “Don’t be silly,” she says. “We’re going to be doing this for a month. You can’t sleep on couches the whole time. Surely we’re past all that.”

He concedes, and they share the bed. It’s as tame as a brother and sister bunking down for the night, but Marie can’t deny that she enjoys the warmth of his weight beside her. 

_Maybe one day I'll join you,_ she’d said to him on the night he came to her and told her of his plans to fake his self-gleaning and retire. It was a tempting thought then and it's even more tempting now. It only occurs to her several minutes later, as she drifts toward sleep, that maybe she already has.

*

Marie isn’t sure if the world has changed since the Thunderhead went silent, or if it’s just different when no one knows you’re a scythe.

People, it turns out, are kind to each other. 

“Is there somewhere nearby that’s good for dinner?” Michael asks the motel owner when they check in after an afternoon of driving through northern Amazonia. 

“Hmm,” the man says, doubtful. “Well, there is a roadside stop two miles up the highway, but all the publicars stop there. Fast food, not good. But I have a pot of feijoada on the stove - beans and meat. I am a good cook, and I make too much for my family. Will you join us?”

They do. After settling into their room and washing off the dust of the road, they head back toward the reception area, only to be called through to a rear courtyard where a lively family gathering is already underway. 

“Come! Come! Welcome!” Their host greets them. He introduces himself as Tony.

Sitting around a hodge-podge of outdoor tables or playing in a grassed area are what appear to be several generations of the man’s family. The youngest, three boys and a girl who seem to be between six and ten years of age, are kicking a football around, while some teenagers lurk on the edge of their game as if reluctant to join in, but also unwilling to join the adults at the tables. 

There are eight adults present, eating and drinking and chatting, conversations that switch seamlessly between Common and Portuzonian. Some of their relationships are obvious - one woman who looks to be in her early thirties is trying to encourage one of the boys to come finish his meal, leading Marie to assume she is his mother, but others are less so. There is a man who appears older than Michael, who Marie might assume is the only grandparent, but then a woman who appears to be in early middle-age calls out to one of the teenagers in Portuzonian, to which he responds addressing her as Vovó - grandmother - and Marie gives up trying to make sense of the gathering. Everyone is smiling, is what matters, and Tony is ushering them over to where a mountainous spread of food is laid out. 

“Help yourself, help yourself,” he says, handing them plates. “Can I get you a drink? Beer? Wine?”

“Beer, thank you,” Michael says, and Marie opts for the latter. They pile their plates high with the meaty stew, as well as rice, greens and slices of orange. Space is made for them at one of the tables, and they are greeted warmly by the family, who introduce themselves so rapidly that Marie loses their names immediately. 

“I’m Emilia,” she says, “and this is my husband, Dante.” She glances at Michael, whose eyebrow twitches ever so slightly as he reaches out to shake the old man’s outstretched hand. 

Emilia and Dante pass a very enjoyable evening with the family. The food is delicious, rich and hearty, and Marie doesn’t realise how much she’s missed home-cooked food until it’s sitting warm in her belly, along with several glasses of wine. The family ask about Emilia and Dante’s plans, which become an elaborate road trip up through MidMerica and across the land bridge to TransSiberia, with plans to stop at all of the out of the way places along the route. 

“We’ve always preferred to do things a little unconventionally,” Michael says, and Marie smiles into her glass.

At some point during the evening, a strand of Marie’s hair comes loose from her bun and gets tucked behind her ear, but it doesn’t escape the notice of the little girl, who, tired from her games with boys, approaches Marie to ask: “How long is _your_ hair?” 

Marie isn’t quite sure how to answer, but the girl seems to have quite a bit of her own, so she reads competition in the question and decides to play along. “When I take it out,” she whispers, exaggerating, “it goes all the way down to my _bum_.”

The little girl giggles at the word, but looks suitably impressed. “How long does it take to brush?” she asks.

“_Ages_,” Marie tells her, wanting to head off any request to take it down. “It gets tangled very easily, which is why I always keep it like this.”

“Do you know how to braid?” the girl asks. “I’m learning, but it makes my arms hurt.”

“I do,” Marie says. “You get used to it.”

A shy smile spreads across the little girl’s face. “Will you braid mine?” she asks. “I like it when people play with my hair.”

Marie smiles. “All right.”

So she does, settling the girl into a comfortable position for both of them and setting about smoothing and dividing her thick waterfall of dark hair. It’s a task that requires a considerable amount of concentration, so the adult conversation goes on without her until a burst of laughter draws her attention. She glances up in time to see Michael with his head thrown back, eyes creased and mouth an open smile. It’s a picture, his ease, the beer bottle in his hand sweating in the warm night and the casual slant of his shoulders. Even when they were younger, she can’t remember him ever looking like that - he’s always been a serious man, weighed down with the responsibility of his calling. 

“You wear it well,” she tells him later, when they’re back in their room and she’s braiding her own hair in preparation for bed. “Retirement, I mean. What would happen if we didn’t…?” It’s the first time she’s voiced one of those thoughts aloud, and she doesn’t have the courage to complete the question, but it hangs there between them, full of open-ended possibility.

He doesn’t answer her immediately, unbuttons his shirt and half turns away from her as he sheds it to pull on his sleeping gear. When he faces her again, he’s softer, chest outlined in grey cotton. “I don’t know,” he says. “Are we willing to risk it?”

*

They’re not, it turns out, at least in the cold light of morning. They continue north without any further discussion, heading back towards the lives they left behind because doing anything else would require making a decision neither of them is willing to commit to, not yet.

The freedom of the road is a potent lure, though. 

“How fast do you think I can take these bends?” Marie asks as they’re winding their way through the mountains of Mexiteca, an area of thick forest and sharp rock formations that open up periodically to offer breathtaking views. They’re making a descent when she glances sideways at Michael and grins, easing her foot off the brake and letting the car pick up speed. 

“Marie,” he warns, “let me remind you that we can’t afford to get deadish here, nor the cost of another car.”

But Marie isn’t listening. A wild joy takes hold of her as she takes the first bend at speed, feeling the weight of the Mustang pull against her hands. She takes the next bend, and the next, testing the car’s capability each time, feeling the wind whip in through the open window and tug at her hair. 

“_Yes,_” she hisses, feeling the steering wheel vibrate under her hands. “That’s it, my dear.” She’s vaguely aware of Michael reaching up to take hold of the safety handle but she can’t spare any attention to check whether he’s enjoying this or not - can’t even bring herself to care, really. Another turn, and another. Her heart is pounding and she knows it shouldn’t be, that her nanites should have kicked in to slow her down. They haven’t though, and she finds she loves it, riding a wave of adrenaline as her foot hovers above the brake and she turns and turns and turns.

It’s perfect, a moment of pure serendipity that as the hill finally bottoms out, a roar reaches her ears, and as she comes around the next bend a huge waterfall looms into view, rushing over the cliffs above and plunging down into a pool right by the side of the road. She does brake then, hard, fishtailing into the gravelly shoulder and tumbling out of the car, bracing her shaking hands against wobbly knees. 

“Look at that,” she breathes, righting herself as Michael joins her, grabbing hold of his shoulder when it turns out to be a bit too soon. “Whew!” She feels breathless. “I think those nurses at that clinic set my adrenaline response _really_ low.” She can feel her nanites now, finally kicking in to lower her heart rate to something closer to normal. “What a rush.”

She finally has a chance to look at Michael, then, finds him wearing an expression that’s half scolding teacher and half amused awe. “You,” he says, “are the most terrifying woman I’ve ever known.”

“Oh, psh.” She smiles, still hanging off his shoulder. “You love it.”

“I think I’ll be driving for the rest of the afternoon,” he says, but doesn’t contradict her. The waterfall mists them with spray and drowns out all other sound.

*

When they enter Texas, things take a turn for the dark. They feel that it’s safe to stay in the city there, what with the unique setup the region has with the Thunderhead, but when they drive into Austin, a place that usually thrums with rebellious energy, they find that the streets are empty. Shopping malls and other public thoroughfares are similarly deserted, and it doesn’t take them long to discover why.

“High Blade Goddard has lifted restrictions on gleaning quotas,” the hotel concierge tells them when they stop for the night. “We’ve had three mass gleanings in the last month. People are afraid to go out in public in case they get caught in one. Not that they’re safe at home, either - the last one was an entire apartment building.”

It makes Marie sick to her stomach, and they find the situation similar in Fort Worth. 

“I fear our fantasy of running away was just that,” Michael says, and though reluctant, Marie agrees.

*

They stick to small towns as they move further into MidMerica.

“It would be a horrible irony to get caught in a gleaning,” Marie says as they skirt Oklahoma City. 

“Or to be recognized when we’ve made it this far,” Michael replies, reminding her that even now, they are still protected by their status. 

That evening, as they drive into the gathering darkness, Michael is behind the wheel. Marie dozes, and when she stirs as the last rays of sun bleed from the sky, she watches him surreptitiously, his shoulders and jaw set with grim determination. Gone is the laughing man she saw in Amazonia, but here he is replaced with someone she knows better. 

Well, she thinks, mind warm and drowsy, it was nice while it lasted, but she loves this version of him too.

*

As they get closer to Fulcrum City, they can’t risk motels anymore, so Michael finds them a short-term rental. It’s a four-hour drive from Conclave, which is just over a week away, and they can access it with a keypad, so they don’t have to worry about being recognized by anyone.

“Two bedrooms, too,” Michael says, as he switches off his tablet. 

“That’ll be nice,” Marie replies, eyes on the road, but she’s not really sure she means it. 

It _is_ nice, when they arrive, a farm cottage with plush couches and a fully-equipped kitchen. Marie is particularly grateful for the latter, and she has to admit that the break from the forced intimacy of a hotel room is welcome, but she can’t help but think about the way the space between herself and Michael, between herself and everyone, is only going to grow in the coming months, and that is a heavy weight that sinks into her gut and stays.

She orders groceries by drone delivery and cooks a meal to soothe herself. 

“I remember this,” Michael says, when she serves up roast lamb stew flavored with garlic and rosemary. “You always cooked it after difficult gleanings.” 

She smiles. “I did.” Her habit of cooking for the families of the gleaned hadn’t begun until a few years into their seven decades of enforced silence, largely as a way for her to combat the loneliness of that time. “Comfort food, and I do like to remind myself that knives can be used for things other than taking life.” 

He ladles some onto his plate, then helps himself to a generous serving of mashed potatoes and a more modest portion of greens. “But that’s not why you’ve cooked it tonight,” he observes. “So who are you trying to comfort?”

“I think we could both use it,” she says as she reaches for the serving spoons herself. But that’s not entirely true either, and she can see in his eyes that he knows it. “Mainly myself, though.”

“Why?” he asks.

She sighs. “Being High Blade was never what I wanted, and it's starting to feel real again, now.”

He smiles, but it’s a little sad and knowing. “I’ve said it before, you’ll-”

“Make a fine High Blade, I know,” she finishes for him.

“Make a fine High Blade,” he agrees, continuing pointedly. “But that’s not what you’re worried about.”

“No,” Marie says, and her own smile feels a bit sheepish. “I know I’ll be good at it - as good as any of the old guard scythes, anyway. But I…” She trails off, uncertain, takes a bite of her meal while she thinks about how to articulate her reluctance. It’s not, in the end, that she’s concerned about the glorification of the things she did in her past, but actually something considerably more selfish.

“I worry about how much of myself I’ll lose,” she says. “How much less of my life will be my own. I thought I’d come to terms with it, but this past month… It’s ridiculous, I know - scythes out there behaving like butchers, and I’m baulking at the idea of some extra responsibility - but...”

"But it's how you feel," Michael says. "That's not ridiculous. I’m not sure there are any easy answers, though, unfortunately.”

“This is the best one I know,” Marie replies, gesturing with her knife and fork. After a moment, she adds: “But I do wish there was something I could do, some way to give her - Honorable Scythe Curie - an ending. One that I remember, I mean, and one that’s on my terms, before I have to transform into Her Excellency.”

*

Marie gazes at herself in the mirror and takes a deep breath. Her robes have never been particularly heavy, but she certainly feels their weight now.

She’s back in her lavender, a brand new set of robes that she managed to order discreetly from the dressmaker who designed the original. It was the riskiest contact she’d made since her resurrection, but there’d been nothing for it - everything she was wearing when she went into the water had been completely destroyed. Marie can only hope that the allure of clothing a High Blade dramatically back from mortal death will be enough to ensure the woman’s silence until the time is right. 

She’s certainly come through on the robes. The cut and shape of this new set is almost identical to the original design - able to be secured in a variety of ways depending on her mood or the weather or the type of weapons she is carrying - but the details have been subtly updated. The thread on the hems, Marie notices as she examines a sleeve, now glints with the same silver as her hair, and the dressmaker has dyed the fabric in such a way that it now has a slight gradient, swishing darker at her ankles. It almost looks as though the fabric is still drying - almost, Marie notes with an ironic smile, as though she’s just risen from the sea. 

Unwinding her hair, she tugs it forward over shoulders, wanting to complete the picture. She runs her fingers through wavy ends, then reaches back, lifting the hood up onto her head. Well, she thinks, she certainly looks the part - patch on her cheek notwithstanding. It’s probably time to remove that anyway, and she’s about to step forward to take a closer look at its edges when Michael knocks gently on the doorframe. She turns, fabric swishing, and has just enough time to catch his expression - disarmed and awestruck - before he schools it serene. 

“I brought you something,” he says, and holds up her ring.

Marie is rattled by his response to her - she hasn’t seen him look at her like that for a very long time - so her voice comes out strangely, breathy and too-casual. “Oh! I thought it must have been lost.”

“No,” he replies, stepping toward her. “I held onto it for you.” There is a gravity in his tone that Marie can’t quite fathom. 

“Well,” she says, presenting her hand, “thank you.”

She thinks he might slide it on for her, but instead he reaches for her hand with the opposite one, turning it over and placing the ring in her palm, curling her fingers closed over it. 

“Before you put it back on,” he says, and waits for her to look at him, “just be sure you know where your heart lies.” 

There’s a strange intensity in his eyes, and it makes Marie wonder if the failsafe he won’t talk about might have something to do with the rings. It’s a thought, and certainly one worth mulling over, but it’s not something she can focus on at that moment, because his hands are warm and steady around hers, and she finds herself distracted by a more primal realization.

It’s him; his presence and his gaze give her the answer to the question she posed at dinner a few nights ago. It fills her up with a sense of urgency and longing that echoes right back to those nights she spent outside his door as an apprentice, heart pounding with terror and lust. She can feel it doing the same thing now, quickening, and just like when she was freewheeling down the mountain, her body does nothing to quell her rising need. It’s ironic, she thinks, after all those nights they spent together in hotel beds, that this desire should surface now. Perhaps there is some value in distance after all, if it’s given her the chance to see what’s been staring her in the face all along. 

“It will be enough,” she whispers, bringing her other hand up to catch his as she pulls her fist gently away and reaches out to deposit the ring on the dresser. “It will be enough to know that I’m human.” And she curls that hand inward, twists it like she’d twisted the handle of her knife in a memory or a dream, but this time the hand reaches for the clasp that fastens her robe and works it open. Then, with her fingers curled around his wrist, she guides his hand beneath the fabric. 

“Help me give her a farewell?” Marie asks, looking up at him again. 

Michael’s breath rattles in his chest, but he smiles. His fingers find the curve of her breast. “I would gladly offer her seven,” he breathes, and very soon her robes are on the floor, and together they give Scythe Curie the sendoff she deserves. 

Later, when they’ve exhausted each other, Marie leaves Michael dozing and slips naked from the bed, moving toward the mirror again. She feels for a loose edge on the dressing patch and peels it away, then finds herself staring at her cheek so intently that she doesn’t hear him stir, doesn’t register him at all until he appears in the mirror behind her. He gazes at her for a moment in its reflection before lifting his hand to lay it on her shoulder, fingers curling against the curve of her neck. 

“Well,” he says, “that is certainly poetic.”

The patch has healed her imperfectly, rebuilt her cheek but left it flawed. There is a thick white scar there that’s nearly two inches long, roughly T-shaped, starting below her eye and curving inward toward her nose. It looks, she thinks - and clearly Michael sees it too - like a blade. 

“It is, isn’t it?” she agrees, and reaches for him again, twining her fingers into his against her shoulder. It’s a comforting weight, his hand, warm and grounding, and even though she knows that this picture cannot become a repeating frame, it feels good to be here now with this image of both her past and her future reflecting back at her. 

“I think I’ll keep it.”

*

Two figures climb the steps to Conclave, one robed in lavender and the other in ivory. They have timed their arrival perfectly - late enough for the day to already be in session, but early enough that the press are still standing by. They make sure they are photographed but they move with purpose, not stopping to glance around. When they reach the top of the stairs, a third figure slips out to join them, seeming to materialise out of nowhere. This figure is wearing turquoise, and she falls in beside them without pause. The more astute photographers may have captured a brief but fervent clasp of hands between the two women, but no one - least of all the women themselves - could have discerned who reached for the other first.

The Grande Dame of Death sweeps into the vestibule and through the rotunda, and when she pushes open the assembly room doors, her hands are steady and her ring gleams. There are audible gasps as people comprehend the sight, two ghosts and a rebel, and she waits for them to subside before she throws back her hood. 

“Scythe Goddard,” she commands, voice carrying right to the back of the room, “kindly vacate my seat.”

High Blade Curie is ready.


End file.
